Professor Matthew Jones

Professor of International History

*On sabbatical leave 2014-2015*

Research Interests: British foreign and defence policy since the Second World War: Nuclear history during the Cold War: Vietnam War: British decolonization and South East Asia: US foreign relations since 1941: Anglo-American relationsRoom: SAR.3.09Tel: +44 (0)20 7852 3791Email: m.c.jones@lse.ac.uk

Professor Jones studied for his undergraduate degree at the University of Sussex, and went on to St Antony’s College, Oxford, where he gained his DPhil in Modern History. He was appointed to a Lectureship in the History Department at Royal Holloway, University of London in 1994, and subsequently promoted to Reader in International History before moving to the University of Nottingham in 2004 where he was Professor of Modern History. In 2008, Professor Jones was appointed by the Prime Minister to become the Cabinet Office official historian of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent and the Chevaline programme, a commission which will lead to the publication of a two volume official history exploring British nuclear policy between 1962 and 1982. He joined LSE in September 2013 as Professor of International History.

As reflected in his articles and books, Professor Jones’s interests span many aspects of the history of British and American foreign and defence policy in the twentieth century, as well as the Cold War more generally. He also has a long standing specific interest in the end of empire in South East Asia. His first book was Britain, the United States and the Mediterranean War, 1942-44 (Macmillan, 1996), which examined the strains brought to the Anglo-American relationship by strategic issues and command problems in the Mediterranean theatre, as well as disputes over civil affairs and the ‘politics of liberation’ as the Allied forces moved through North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and approached the Balkans. For his next book, Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961-1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia, and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge University Press, 2002), he looked at the process by which the federation of Malaysia was created as British decolonization gathered pace in the 1960s, the way this helped to trigger conflict with Indonesia, and the attitude of the United States toward these events as its own involvement in the region deepened. His most recent book, After Hiroshima: The United States, Race, and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945-1965, published in 2010 by Cambridge University Press, looked at the development of US nuclear strategy in Asia in the period marked by the Korean War, confrontation with China, and the early phases of US engagement in Vietnam, placing a special emphasis on the influence of the widespread perception that the atomic bomb was a ‘white man’s weapon’ and the diplomatic and military dilemmas this helped create. His current project on UK nuclear weapons policy in the 1960s and 1970s has taken him into many areas of the international history of the period, including US-Soviet relations, the development of NATO strategy, and strategic arms control.

Professor Jones has been the recipient of grants and awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Eccles Centre for North American Studies at the British Library.

- Why should students study at LSE?
- What are the benefits of studying in London?
- What skills does a history research degree provide students with?
- What opportunities are open to history graduates?
- Why did you want to study history?

Interview recorded in 2013/2014.

Professor Matthew Jones is on sabbatical leave in 2014-15, but he will return in 2015-2016 with two new courses.

2013

‘”A Man in a Hurry”: Henry Kissinger, Transatlantic Relations, and the British Origins of the Year of Europe Dispute,’ Diplomacy and Statecraft, 24, 1, 2013, 77-99.

(with Paul McGarr), ‘”Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’? The CIA and the Representation of Covert Operations in the Foreign Relations of the United States Series,’ in Christopher R. Moran and Christopher J. Murphy (eds), Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US: Historiography since 1945 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 65-89.

2011

‘Great Britain, the United States, and consultation over use of the atomic bomb, 1950-1954,’ The Historical Journal, 54, 3, September 2011, 797-828.

‘Intelligence and Counterinsurgency: The Malayan Experience,’ in M. Goodman and R. Dover (eds), Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011), 135-54.

2010

After Hiroshima: The United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945-1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp502 + xii.

(with John W. Young): ‘Polaris, East of Suez: British plans for a Nuclear Force in the Indo-Pacific region, 1964-1968,’ Journal of Strategic Studies, 33, 6, December 2010, 847-70.

‘Between the Bear and the Dragon: Nixon, Kissinger, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Era of Détente,’ English Historical Review, CXXIII, October 2008, 1272-1283.

2007

'Lost Opportunities or False Expectations? The Kennedy Administration and Indonesia, 1961-63,’ in M. Berg and A. Etges (eds), John F. Kennedy and the "Thousand Days": New Perspectives on the Foreign and Domestic Policies of the Kennedy Administration (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag, 2007), 99-120.

"Kipling and all that": American perceptions of SOE and British imperial intrigue in the Balkans, 1943-1945,’ in N. Wylie (ed), The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine War: Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946 (London: Routledge, 2007), 90-108.

‘The Preferred Plan: The Anglo-American Working Group Report on Covert Action in Syria, 1957,’ Intelligence and National Security, 19, 3, 2004, 401-15.

‘”Calling three meetings in five days is foolish – and putting them off for six weeks at a time is just as bad”: Organizing the New Frontier’s Foreign Policy,’ Diplomacy and Statecraft, 15, 2, June 2004, 413-25.

2003

‘Up the Garden Path? Britain’s Nuclear History in the Far East, 1954-1962,’ International History Review, 25, 2, June 2003, 306-33.

‘Anglo-American relations after Suez, the rise and decline of the Working Group experiment, and the French challenge to NATO, 1957-59,’ Diplomacy and Statecraft, 14, 2, March 2003, 49-79.

2002

Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961-1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp325 + xv.

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